the way the knit was
the looseness of the fitting
the qaulity of boots
and food kind
preparadness
and each day out there
no holiday save Sunday to rest
Got cold...pick it up
build little fires
and pull on an oar

Now its all wet suits
and lycra

but how did we survive
the thousand odd years till
now?

Layering

and extras if one could afford it!!
I know people who cut peat
in their days
and collected coal from the steamers
backs along the tracks

the engineers and fireman throwing
coal at them and they throwing back
!! all that effort got them old
got them so I could meet them
They were not proud and not frozen
in the huts they lived in before the greater
times

In Newfoundland one had to salt a tone of cod
A TONNE before one could buy things from the
company stores like fabrics and decent goods
they worked from the little boats far afshore

I did one fall throwin sacks of concrete on Bell cables
for the wealthy in Muskoka on their wild lakes
The other wild contractors building docks on islands
watched us the gunwhales riding atop the crest of
waves as we wheeled past them
towards a long shore approach so someone
could dial up their shopping

we were hard asses
but i read this
and think of where my Scottish ancestors came
from and my Ojibhway peoples who moved by water
and respected the storms in our great lakes

A great poem describing the land
the conditions
and the madmen and women who brave
the surf for enjoyments today

Your first line is Awesome!!

Thank You!